HeidiSongs Teaching Resource

In this post, I will share "Six Easy Ways to Help Young Children with ADHD Succeed in School!"  Whether or not an official ADHD diagnosis has been given, young children that have an extra healthy dose of the wiggles combined with a cupful of impulsivity will probably benefit from these techniques that I have developed over the years in my Kindergarten classroom.  I hope they are helpful!  And don't miss our  previous post about ADHD  in which we talked about the importance of teachers and parents coming together to help a child with ADHD enjoy school success. Six Easy Ways to Help Young Children with ADHD Succeed in School When a teacher or caregiver changes the way things are usually done in order to help a child with special needs, these are known as "accommodations."  The accommodations that we have listed below are simple changes that can benefit all students who have even just the symptoms of ADHD, not just those who have an official diagnosis an

Hello there!  Today I have a really fun activity to share with you called "Erase-a-Rhyme with LETTERS!" In this activity, the children listen for beginning sounds and rhyming words to help them figure out which letters to erase!  You could also play it by having the children write, cross out, or trace the letters rather than erase them!  (See the pictures below.) And I've included the masters for those activities in the download for you, too. Erase-a-Rhyme with LETTERS! A-Z- completely FREE! I have to give TONS of credit to my HeidiSongs Facebook Group that helped me create this activity, which you can download free HERE.   I came up with the idea, and then asked for help in making up the clues.  Without everyone's help in brainstorming, this little freebie wouldn't have happened.  So THANK YOU to all of you wonderful people that helped donate all of your creative talents! Click here to download my original Erase-a-Rhyme activity, in which the ch

Have you ever tried a Write the Room type of activity?  If not, then you and your kids are in for a BIG TREAT!  CVC Write the Room is a super fun and easy, active activity that keeps kids on their feet to go on a word hunt, while still holding them accountable to find all of the CVC words in the room and write them on a recording sheet!  There are many different types of Write the Room activities, including Count the Room, Read the Room, Add the Room, etc.! In our new version, CVC Write the Room , the teacher prints out some numbered cards with pictures of CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words, and posts them all around the classroom, lightly "hidden" so that the children have to go on a word hunt! The children are given clipboards with a recording sheet, and a pencil.  When they find each picture, they write the word next to its number on the recording sheet! Most of my Transitional Kindergartners (TKs) were not able to write the word without somet

Getting young children started writing real sentences can seem more than difficult; it can seem completely IMPOSSIBLE, especially if you work with disadvantaged or low income students as I always have!  Yet year after year, my students have conquered this successfully, without any tears (on their part) or ulcers (on mine!)  Here is how I accomplish this, step by step. My intention has always been to make the writing process a FUN AND EASY one, whether my little ones came to me with tons of advantages, or whether they arrived on day one with no preschool or literacy experiences to their name anywhere, ever.  When I started making up sight word spelling songs , I was just trying to make the writing process easier and more fun for all!  So, it was very natural for me to intentionally CONNECT THE SONGS TO THE WRITING PROCESS.  Of course, as many of you already know, the unintended consequence was that most of the children first learned to READ the words by singing and movin

We are continuing with our series, Summer School at Home with Heidisongs: Getting Ready for Kindergarten. Welcome to Week 4! (Here are weeks 1 , 2 , and 3 .) And by the way, some friends of mine at Personal Creations are working on a special "School All Summer" Pinterest board, which will be up soon!  As soon as it is posted, I will be linking up with them there.  I think that this will be a great place for parents to get more ideas for activities, brain teasers, games, and other ideas to help children keep learning all summer long.  So watch for that!  Meanwhile, check out my Pinterest Summer Fun and Games board for many more fun and educational ideas to do with your children! Books About Separating From Mom and Dad Reading books with children is a great way to spark conversations about feelings and emotions. It also gives them a chance to rehearse how they will handle different situations when they arise. Here are four great titles that address separatio